


All Kinds of Time

by obsession_inc



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-02
Updated: 2006-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsession_inc/pseuds/obsession_inc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Borrowing contentment is easier when you're drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Kinds of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/office_romances/profile)[**office_romances**](http://community.livejournal.com/office_romances/). Set at one of the many, many random parties at the office, mid-way through Season 2. (Title courtesy of the [first Fountains of Wayne album](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009QGF2/sr=8-1/qid=1154535743/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-9089676-3177557?ie=UTF8), which you really ought to listen to. If you dig The Office, you will dig Fountains of Wayne.)

Kelly talks when she's happy, and she's happy when she talks; at least, that's how it seems to Pam. It's nice to have someone being happy autonomously, without Pam having to do anything except nod at key points. No expectations, no needs, no conflict. It's relaxing. She can't quite focus on Kelly's face, and her attention keeps fading in and out like a radio station coming in from Canada, but really, this is the _best_.

"So I said, Mom, seriously, _Cosmo_ is not all about sex. I mean, not _all_ about sex. A lot of it is about clothes."

Pam has her head leaning on one hand and she's considering getting another whiskey sour, but the current whiskey sour has made the inside of her mouth all puckery so maybe not. She's reached that fuzzy, floppy stage of inebriation and the bar that Michael set up on top of the copier seems very far away. She mouths the word "far" to herself and tries to figure out if that's actually English. It doesn't seem like it. Maybe it needs more letters. Maybe it's French. She took French once, for a language requirement in college, and really, she ought to know, but all she can really remember is how to excuse herself to go to the bathroom, 'cause they had to ask the professor in French, every time.

"I mean, I'm twenty-four, it's not like I'm still in high school and have a curfew or whatever. It's just that I get sleepy early. I'm a morning person, I just hop right up in the morning, it's just how I am. So it's not like I _have_ to go home early, it's just that I get tired when the date goes past ten, you know?"

Pam nods and keeps nodding until she remembers to stop, because her head feels very wobbly and once she gave in to the wobble, the wobble became everything. She's not tired, though. She feels _relaxed_, not tired, and relaxed is nice. It's _so_ nice. She could sit here at Kelly's desk pretty much all night. It's nice to not feel like she's holding the world together by sheer force of will. It's nice to take a break for once. Nice. Everything's nice.

"And I'm like, oh my _God_, because of course the power has to go out when my hair's wet and I have to leave, so I knock on the door across the hall and the girl there says 'We don't have power either' like I'm supposed to know that, I mean, I don't _live_ there or whatever, _God_. So I just leave with my hair wet and it's like ten below zero out there and I thought all my hair was going to freeze off, but it didn't. I could have been bald, though, could you _imagine?_"

Pam forgets to nod, but Kelly seems okay with that anyway, and Pam feels another surge of goodwill toward her, and she thinks she's smiling but her eyes keep drifting closed. Maybe she _is_ tired. She's worn out, she thinks, exhausted. It's hard work, trying to hold on to a life that keeps slipping away in spite of her best efforts, trying to work hard enough to make things work with Roy the way they used to. Everything she's ever loved is leaking through her fingers like a handful of water, and she tries, and he tries, too, and it's terrifying to think that you can love someone and be loved back and try so hard and have it just plain _not work_. They didn't cover that in the movies, or in health class, and her mom keeps saying it'll sort itself out, but Pam can't get anyone to tell her what she should _do_.

This just can't happen. She has a life, she picked it, she worked for it, she worked _on_ it, she has a job and Roy and a ring and now she's getting a wedding, too, and it should all be okay. She can't figure out what's happening and if she doesn't figure it out, it'll all break and she'll lose everything, and she's so, so scared. She feels like she's slipping off a cliff by inches, sliding inexorably over the edge in spite of everyone reassuring her that she's nowhere _near_ falling, and when she tries to explain they all say it's just jitters and every bride gets them. They don't get that it's not the damn wedding, it's her _life_, and if she can't fix this, then... then she can't even imagine.

She only realizes that she's crying when she feels Kelly touch her arm. "Hey," Kelly says, "hey, Pam, are you okay? Don't cry. It's all right, okay?"

Pam opens her eyes and looks at Kelly through a glaze of tears. "I'm just so scared," she whispers, and Kelly gently wraps her cool fingers around the back of Pam's hand and squeezes, that solemn wide-eyed doll look on her face.

"You don't have to be scared," Kelly reassures her. "I'm okay now, see?" She shows Pam the sleeve of her blouse. "White wine really _does_ take out red. But it's sooo sweet of you to worry about me like that!" She squeezes Pam's hand tight when she says "sooo". "You are really darling when you're drunk, you know that? I mean, I like to think that I'm cute when I'm drunk, but _you_, you're like this sweet little angel."

Pam stares at her, sorting it out, and finally she starts laughing, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist, because what else is there to do but laugh? "You know," she finally tells Kelly, "you are so lucky. You just have no idea how lucky you are."

Kelly blinks at her and shrugs. "Okay." She smiles, and starts talking about Ryan or possibly Brian for all Pam knows, whoever Brian is, and she's happy. Pam puts her head down on the chilly surface of the desk, content to sit here and soak in a little bit of simple happiness, even if it's someone else's.


End file.
